


Between The Living And The Dying

by VivaVoce



Category: CSI: NY
Genre: Angst, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 22:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11678730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivaVoce/pseuds/VivaVoce
Summary: Can two people who feel like they live their lives in limbo find solace and maybe even love? Mac/OC with flashbacks to Mac/Claire. Minor crossover w/ NCIS and AU JAG.





	1. Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first published on FF.net in 2009. I had abandoned the story for eight years, but recently decided to revive it, and in doing so, thought I might also publish it here on AO3. Enjoy!

_Prologue_

On more than one occasion did Sydney find herself tempted to drive the red '69 Corvette and herself along with it, over the Coronado Bridge. She would resist, only to have the impulse reassert itself later with more force. The one thing that held her back was the fear that she would survive. The last thing she wanted was to end up paralyzed in a hospital bed for the rest of her life. That would be an existence far worse than the one she was living now.

The temptation remained. And Sydney did nothing to avoid it. Rather, she gave into it, every chance she got. When her father suggested moving to another city, she couldn’t deny that it was probably a good idea. When he encouraged her to choose New York she realized he didn’t suspect her of nursing a death wish.

While living in San Diego she had only the Coronado Bridge to contend with. She wondered at the wisdom of moving to an island surrounded by nothing but bridges. Manhattan alone was connected to sixteen bridges. That was sixteen too many.

Never one to be intimidated and always one to take on a challenge, she accepted a job offer in the Big Apple from the New York Police Department. She knew full well that sooner or later (most likely sooner) she would come face to face with one of those towering structures. What she didn’t know was whether they would become her companions or her tormentors.

It really was no surprise then, that on that night, when that particular call came through, she was the one to take it.  
  


* * *

 

 _Wednesday, January 15, 200_ 3

It was late in the evening, well after her workday had ended, but Sydney had yet to make it home for the night. Instead she was driving around lower Manhattan in her new, black Escalade, with the music from the radio being drowned out every few seconds by the dispatchers’ voices over the scanner. She was familiarizing herself with her new home, or so she had lied to herself. In reality she was now quite familiar with this part of the city. A resident for only two weeks, but already she had made a dozen visits to this landmark. As she made her way closer and closer to the stone giant, a call out caught her attention.

"SVU is requested on the pedestrian path of the Manhattan Bridge," said a brusque female voice over the scanner.

Without hesitating Sydney picked up her mic and responded. "This is Lincoln 1-2-9. I'm in the area. I'll take the call."

"Unbelievable," she thought to herself as she flipped on her siren and weaved her way through the late night traffic.  
  


* * *

 

To some the sight would have been startling, but to the New Yorker who’s seen everything and to the cops, detectives and CSIs who’ve seen even more, it wasn’t that odd of a display. A young, Caucasian female, of average height with medium length auburn hair, was tied to the chain link fence mounted above the railing than ran the length of the bridge. She was dressed in a black leather corset with matching boyshorts, fishnet stockings and black boots with stiletto heels. The macabre spectacle had been called in by a passenger on the Q, who just happened to be looking up from her magazine at the right time, as the train crossed the Manhattan Bridge. The scene flashed by her so quickly, that she was short on details, but she’d made out just enough to know that, more than likely, it required police attention.  
  


* * *

 

"Dispatch just radioed for SVU. I'll hang out until they arrive," said Flack as he walked over to where Danny was putting paper bags over the victim’s hands.

"Who do ya think they'll send this time? Bowman?" asked the Staten Island native, without much confidence. "You shoulda seen the way he interviewed those witnesses last time. I was embarrassed for him."

Flacked laughed as he thought back to his own encounters with “Bumbling Bowman” as he was known throughout the department. “Maybe the new guy will shake things up over there."

Taken aback by this Danny stopped what he was doing for a moment and turned so he was facing his friend. With a shrug of his shoulders he repeated, "New guy?"

Flack nodded his head in annoyance. "Yeah, you didn't hear? SVU got a new boss. Conlan retired."

“He did? When’d that happen?"

Shaking his head, Flack replied, "About a month ago, man.”

"Huh, guess I missed that memo,” said Danny, as he returned to his work.

“Just that one?” said the snarky voice of Danny’s partner, Rachel Glass.

Purposely ignoring her jibe, Danny continued, "So, what we know about this new guy? He one of us?"

"Nah, I hear he's from California."

"What makes you so sure the new department head is a man, Flack? It could be a woman," said Glass with a smirk as she looked up from her camera.

Flack was aggravated and didn’t bother to hide it. "Was I talkin’ to you Rachel?"

"She has a good point though," came an unexpected yet decidedly female voice. "The 'new guy' might not be a guy."

Flack turned in the direction of the voice and with little regard for the tall, dark haired and robust woman who walked towards him, he asked, "And you are?"

"I'm the new guy," she replied with just the faintest hint of a smile playing across her features.

Taking a big gulp of what little saliva was in his mouth, Flack said, "Oh, uh ... sorry … ma'am."

With a straight face and a slight shake of her head, Sydney admonished him, "Don't call me ma'am."

"Sorry … sir."

"I prefer lieutenant," said Sydney as she extended her hand towards Flack. "Lieutenant Sydney Logan, SVU."

Flack met her outstretched hand with his own and was surprised by her firm grasp. “Detective Donald Flack, Junior … ma'am … sir ... sorry."

"Good to know," she said as she released his hand. "I'm guessing you're with Homicide?"

"Uh … yes, sir … I mean lieutenant. I–I am."

Sydney couldn't help but smile at the young detective. He'd been caught talking about a superior officer, which he knew wasn't good. But not only that, he'd been caught by the person whom he was talking about. And that was definitely bad. Before Flack had a chance to salvage the remaining pieces of his ego though, a curly-haired woman, about the same height as Sydney, approached them carrying an old, rusty set of bolt cutters.

“Rachel, you done taking pictures?” she asked. The girl nodded politely, indicating that she was. “Okay then, I guess we’re ready to cut her down. Flack, Danny, can you two give me a hand?”

“Whoa! Hold up a minute,” said Sydney as she stepped forward to make her presence known to the other woman. Whipping out her badge she introduced herself once again.

The woman smiled and shook her hand. “Detective Stella Bonasera, Crime Lab. Nice to meet you.” Laughing a bit she said, “We all thought you were a man.”

Smiling slightly herself, Sydney replied, “So I gathered.” She paused for a moment, then pointed at the bolt cutters resting on Stella’s right shoulder and said, “ Anyway, you wanna tell me what’s going on here first, before you chop up my crime scene?”

Stella smiled again as she brought the tool down to her side, holding it in a less intimidating manner. “Yeah, of course.” Using her free hand, she gestured at the victim. “Um, as you can see, female DB in bondage gear, so this could be some type of S & M stunt gone wrong, or right, we don’t know at this point. No ID, so we’re dealing with a Jane Doe. A passenger on the subway that runs on the tracks behind us called it in. Other than that, no witnesses. This path is pretty deserted tonight. Since we’ve been here, we haven’t seen any pedestrians. I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got for you.”

“Not your fault. I’ll start with missing persons; see if I get any hits.” Sydney let out a long sigh. She looked at the dead girl then back to Stella. “You’ll send me copies of the crime scene photos and any other findings?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great. Thanks.” And with that, Sydney turned to make the long walk back across the bridge to where she was parked. She kept her face and eyes forward the entire time, in an attempt to see as little of the choppy water below as possible.

“She didn’t stick around long,” observed Danny as he and Flack helped steady the body while Stella cut through the chain link fence.

“No, but there’s really not much for her to go on at this point. Why don’t you reserve your judgment, Danny, until after we give her something to run with?” suggested Stella.

“Eh, I suppose.”

Glass let out a disgusted sigh and was about to speak when Stella cut her off. “Keep it to yourself, Rachel.”

Letting out an even bigger sigh this time, she huffed, “Fine.”  
  


* * *

 

Sydney sat at her new desk in her new office on the twenty-first floor of 5885 Broadway, contemplating whether or not she should turn the bridge case over to one of her detectives. Working a case that involved bridges was really the last thing she needed to be doing right now and so far there wasn’t much to go on. The victim still remained unidentified. If this girl had friends or family, they had yet to notice she was gone. None of the reports filed with missing persons matched the victim’s description. There were hundreds of different fingerprints and partial fingerprints on the railing and fence where the victim was restrained. It would take a while to pull a list of potential suspects together, and even then it was possible that none of those prints belonged to the killer. The body showed definite signs of sexual trauma, but the killer had been thorough. He made sure no trace of him was left behind on his victim. It frustrated her to do so, but unless she or the CSIs on the case uncovered a “smoking gun,” she had to admit it was unlikely that this case would be solved.

With that in mind she made the decision to hand the case off to one of her less experienced detectives. A case like this would be good practice for them. No sooner than she stood up from her desk though, than her phone rang. Another body. Another bridge. Another late night.

 

* * *

 

It was a cold and foggy night in the city. The temperature was well below freezing and the air so thick you could barely see the taillights of the car in front of you. Few people were about, having been forced to stay indoors due to the adverse weather conditions. In short it was the perfect night for mischief and mayhem. Under the cover of the dense fog, one could carry out dirty deeds without fear of being caught; deeds that would have been impossible feats otherwise. It was a rare opportunity that only a fool would refuse.

When Sydney saw the positioning of the latest victim, she knew it could only have been accomplished on a night like this. It could have perhaps been accomplished elsewhere, in a less conspicuous location. But to orchestrate such a thing on the George Washington Bridge required that one be patient and wait for the right moment.

Like the first victim, she was a young Caucasian female with an average build. She had no distinguishing characteristics, or at least none that were visible. Her features were neither unpleasant nor striking. All in all she was completely unremarkable. Except that also like the first victim, she too was dressed in similar S & M style attire. Her corpse donned a black patent leather halter with a pair of matching high-leg briefs, fishnet stockings and black knee-high boots. The similarities didn’t end there. She was suspended five feet in the air by her wrists from one of the many pillars lining the pedestrian walkway on the north side of the bridge. Quarter-inch thick chain seemed to be his bond of choice. There was no doubting that this was the work of the same man.

When Stella and her team of CSIs arrived Sydney informed them of what she knew. No ID on the victim, so they were dealing with another Jane Doe. A male pedestrian noticed the body, as he walked across the bridge on his way to work, and called it in. He had been detained and questioned for elimination purposes, but Sydney very much doubted he was their killer. And so, just like the time before, they had no witnesses.

“What makes you so sure he ain’t our guy?” asked Danny without bothering to hide the skepticism in his voice.

Sydney was studying the victim intently, looking for anything to aid her search. She didn’t hear exactly what Danny said, but she did hear enough to know that she didn’t like his tone. “What?” she asked sharply.

Knowing he’d probably crossed a line, Danny quickly rephrased his question. “I uh … I was just curious what it was that uh … made you realize the witness wasn’t a suspect?”

“He’s five foot six, one-hundred and forty pounds and has a broken arm. It is highly unlikely he could have done this,” Sydney snapped, pointing her right hand towards the victim.

“Good point.” Danny took a step back, pointed over his shoulder and announced, “I’m uh … gonna start processing the scene now.”

Sydney let out a frustrated sigh and walked over to the railing to clear her head. The fog was still dense around the bridge, so she couldn’t see the water below. She couldn’t see anything beyond the railing really. Had she not known she was standing on a bridge, she would have been none the wiser that she was mere inches from a fatal fall.

A few minutes later Stella joined her at the railing. “Looks like we’re dealing with a serial. But if the killer was as meticulous with this vic as he was with the first one, then we’re going to have a hard time finding him.”

Keeping her focus straight ahead, Sydney simply nodded in acknowledgement.

“Everything okay?”

Sydney turned her head towards Stella and replied, “Yeah, fine.” She returned her gaze to the abyss in front of her and was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “You know, if a person didn’t know better, they might think it possible to step over this railing and keep on walking … Boy would they be in for a helluva surprise.”

Stella thought about what she said for a minute then asked, “Did you know that about ten people commit suicide on this bridge every year? Some people even come from out of state to do it. ‘Suicide tourists’ are what they’re called.”

Sydney didn’t say much in response, just “Hmm.” Stella thought that perhaps she wasn’t listening to her, so she began to walk back towards the crime scene. She had only taken a few steps when Sydney turned around and asked, “What did you say?”

Stella stopped and turned back around. “I said ten people throw themselves off this bridge each year.”

“No, after that.”

“People come from out of state to commit suicide here?” said Stella, unsure if that was what she wanted her to repeat.

Sydney looked up at the victim’s body, faintly swaying in the wind. “Out of state. That’s it.”

“What’s it?” asked Stella in confusion.

Walking quickly back to her SUV, Sydney yelled over her shoulder, “We need to expand our search.”  
  


* * *

 

This was Sydney’s first visit to the New York City Crime Lab. To say that it was not what she was expecting would have been an understatement. The facility was housed in an old factory that had been converted by the NYPD some forty years prior. The building had a distinctly gothic feel to it. It was cold, sterile and dark. There were hardly any windows except a few in the bullpen that were high up on the walls near the ceiling. Aside from that main room, all the other sections of the lab had low ceilings and narrow corridors. Despite appearances however, the New York Crime Lab was ranked highly among its peers nationwide. Their equipment was top of the line, no expense having been spared. While it was an odd contrast to see such technologically advanced machines in an otherwise outdated setting, Sydney reasoned that this had been a deliberate action. Unless the roof caved in or the foundation gave way, it was unlikely that the city would spend money on new, more extravagant accommodations. Where they did their crime solving was of little consequence as opposed to how they did it.

Nonetheless, Sydney didn’t like the place. It made her feel cramped and slightly claustrophobic; sensations that she was already fighting whenever she set foot outside. Now, however, was not the time to dwell on such matters. Stella had asked her to come to the crime lab to examine their findings and hopefully come up with a lead. Sydney met her along with Danny and Glass in the lab’s conference room.

“Okay, let’s review what we know so far,” said Stella. Multiple folders and crime scene photos were spread out on the table in front of her. She picked up two of the photos, one of each victim, looked at them for a moment then passed them around the room. “Both of our vics are young, white females, wearing similar S & M like clothing. Both were found strung up on the pedestrian walkway of a bridge. And they were both raped. We ran their fingerprints and DNA through AFIS and CODIS, but no hits. As for the killer, we don’t have anything on him either – no fingerprints or DNA.”

“Have we established a motive?” asked Glass as she studied the photos before passing them to Danny who sat on her right.

Leaning back in his chair, Danny answered, “He’s some lonely guy who can’t get a girlfriend with a bondage fetish. He sees these desperate females as easy targets. He sweet talks ‘em, takes ‘em home, drugs ‘em, and then does his thing.” He shrugged his shoulders as if it should have been obvious to her and then waved his hand dismissively. “Boom! There’s your motive.”

Sydney rolled her eyes at him, but chose not to say anything. Instead she asked a question of her own. “Did the tox screen give us anything?”

Resisting the urge to stab Danny in the hand with her pen, Glass answered, “Yeah, we found traces of GHB in both victims. The drug would’ve made them more compliant, explaining why we found no signs of a struggle.”

“Did we get an official COD from Hawkes yet?” asked Danny.

“He found evidence of pulmonary edema in both vics,” replied Stella.

“So they drowned?” asked Sydney, surprised by this information.

“Yeah, why? Is that significant?” asked Stella.

“Yeah, it is. It confirms my theory.” Sydney stood up from her chair and walked to the computer cart at the front of the room. “I expanded the missing persons search to a national level and was able to discover the identity of our vics: Jennifer Friel and Renee Platt.” The girls’ faces appeared side by side on the projection screen. “Jennifer was a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University and Renee was an intern at an ad agency in Dallas. Both girls’ lives seemed to be moving along normally until about two weeks ago.” Sydney tapped a few keys and clicked the mouse a couple times. The image on the screen changed to a website called Invitation to a Suicide.

“What the hell kinda freak show is this?” asked Danny.

“It’s a website where you can announce your suicide to the internet community. You can make an anonymous post or use your real name. Lucky for us, our vics used their real names.” With a couple more clicks of the mouse Sydney brought up each girls’ post. “They listed when and where they planned to kill themselves. Jennifer our first vic planned to jump off the Manhattan Bridge and Renee our second vic was going to jump off the GW Bridge. I’m thinking our killer was familiar with this site. He saw these girls’ posts and decided to intervene.”

“Son of a bitch,” muttered Stella. “So what he approaches them as some ‘good Samaritan’ and convinces them not to jump? Then when he’s gained their trust, which probably wasn’t too hard considering the state they’re in, he drugs and rapes them?” The tone and volume of her voice rose with each word. “And then when he’s finished with them he drowns them, because hey that’s how they were going to die anyway?”

“Basically, yeah,” replied Sydney. She could tell Stella was disgusted. She was too.

“Man, that is one twisted fuck,” said Glass.

Sydney crossed her arms across her chest and said, “Yeah, well, now that we know how he’s picking his targets, we can find a way to catch him.”

Glass leaned forward in her chair and made a suggestion. “What if we set him up?”

“What are you thinking, Rachel?” asked Danny. The skepticism in his voice was unmistakable.

“I’m thinking we put up a bogus post, lure him out. When he appears, we arrest him.”

“It’s an idea,” agreed Sydney as she walked back to her seat. “We’d have to get Vice involved, so there’s actually someone out there waiting for him, and so we can be sure it’s him. And we’d have to cross our fingers that no other pedestrians would be around and get caught up in the melee.”

“Okay, well if not that, then what?” asked Glass, irritated that her idea hadn’t been completely embraced.

“The website logs the IP addresses of visitors to the site. We can see what ones visited both Jennifer and Renee’s pages, and if any of them are local,” replied Sydney.

“You’re kidding right?”

“No. I’m not. Also in the meantime, we monitor the site for any more potential jumpers. He’s looking for women who are planning to jump off New York bridges. That narrows it down pretty good. If any come up, we’ll be out there waiting too.”

“So that’s it?”

“Dammit Glass!” Sydney snapped and slammed the palm of her left hand down on the table. “I will speak with Vice. But an op like this is not something that can be coordinated overnight. It will take a couple of days and that is if they’re even willing to do it! All right?!”

Glass didn’t respond except to nod her head. She may have been too vocal for her own good, but she knew when to shut up. Usually.  
  


* * *

 

Sydney had no idea what she was going to do with all of the space. She certainly didn’t need it. Yet she had purchased an apartment in Manhattan with more than 1,000 square feet of space. Having lived there only a few short weeks, she had yet to properly furnish it. As such it had a cavernous feel to it. Despite not having a sofa to sit on though, she found her home comfortable. It was open and roomy. A place where she could breathe and unwind after a long day at work. A place where she didn’t have to worry about bumping into someone else or having her “personal space bubble” violated.

Her intentions that night had been simple: come home, eat dinner, take a long hot bath and hopefully fall asleep before midnight. She managed to do the first three and was just beginning to doze off when the ring of her cell phone ruined any chance of accomplishing the latter. It was Stella, calling to inform her that there was a new post on that website. Another young girl from out of state intended to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge in less than an hour.  
  


* * *

 

Sydney casually walked down the pedestrian path of the Brooklyn Bridge, grateful she’d had the wherewithal to dress in jeans, sneakers and a hooded puff jacket. She needed to blend in. Although, there were few people about, so there wasn’t much to blend in to. Her main concern was that she not stand out or arouse suspicion. They had a chance to catch their killer and she didn’t want to fuck it up. She reached the first tower and decided to wait beneath it, hoping it might mask her presence. Her wait wasn’t long. A few short minutes later a figure came walking up the path and stopped at the railing about a hundred feet from where Sydney stood. She was motionless for a moment, not knowing whether to be shocked or not by the person she saw. About that same time Stella’s voice sounded in her ear.

“I just got word from Danny. It’s Glass! She’s our jumper.”

“I know,” replied Sydney in as clear and low a tone as she could manage without giving herself away.

“You know?” asked Stella surprised.

“She just walked up. And I believe our killer has just arrived as well. Standby.”

A tall, slender, Caucasian male who looked to be in his mid thirties walked over to the railing and began speaking to Glass. Sydney couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she could tell by Glass’ performance that the man didn’t suspect a set up. Glass attempted to climb over the railing but the man gently tugged her back. She then began wailing and sobbing which in turn caused the man to pull her into a hug. Glass willingly sank into his embrace.

“Dammit girl! Don’t overdo it,” thought Sydney to herself. Under different circumstances the scene before her might actually have been funny. All too quickly though, things turned deathly serious.

Stepping back from his embrace, Glass wiped at her eyes with her fingers. She reached into her coat pocket, and fumbled a bit as if digging for a tissue. What she pulled out however was not a tissue. She deftly whipped out her weapon and aimed it mere inches from the man’s forehead.

“NYPD! You’re under arrest!” she bellowed.

Surprise and hurt spread across his face, but they were quickly replaced by anger. Snarling at her he grabbed for her weapon. His movement caused her to stumble, leading to a struggle for the gun.

As soon as Glass had trained her gun on him, Sydney signaled for back up and ran towards the brawl. Mere seconds before she skidded to a stop, the man had picked up Glass’ weapon from the pavement. Upon seeing her and the gun she had pointed at his face, he yanked Glass up off the ground, set her in front of himself as a shield and jammed the barrel of the gun into the side of her head.

“I’m not going back!” he yelled. And before Sydney could fire off a single shot, the unknown assailant threw himself over the side of the railing and crash landed on the hood of a taxi cab as it passed by on the roadway beneath.  
  


* * *

 

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Glass?!” Sydney heard Mac roar as she made her way across the bullpen to his office.

It was only a few hours after the incident on the bridge and Glass had the misfortune to have a boss who rarely went home at night or even slept. He had been wide awake working on a high priority case of his own when he received word about her rogue operation. Fueled by nothing but eight cups of coffee, Mac was the last person you wanted angry with you at 3:00 A.M.

Pacing behind his desk Mac continued to holler. “You could’ve gotten yourself and others killed. As it is, we have an unknown male lying dead in the morgue who we think is the killer!”

Defiant to the end and seemingly unaffected by her boss’ tirade, she responded, “No one else would act, sir. I thought if there was the smallest chance I could catch the son of a bitch responsible for these murders, then it was well worth the risk.”

He stopped his pacing, looked her right in the eye and said in a stony voice, “That was not your decision to make.”

“It certainly was not,” agreed Sydney as she stepped into Mac’s office.

Mac looked at her skeptically, unsure of her identity. “Lieutenant Logan?”

“Yes. Nice to meet you Detective Taylor,” she said as she reached out her hand to him. “Although I wish it was under better circumstances.”

Mac shook her hand and smirked at her comment.

Sydney tilted her head to her left and asked, “Have you decided what you’re going to do with her?”

“I have a good idea of what I’d like to do,” said Mac.

Sydney smiled at that. “May I have a word with you then?”

Mac nodded his head in agreement, then turning to Glass he pointed his finger at her and said, “You’re dismissed. For now. But don’t leave the lab.”

Once she left, Sydney took a look around Mac’s office and immediately noticed his military memorabilia. “You’re a Marine,” she stated, more than asked.

“That’s right,” said Mac, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“So am I,” said Sydney, smiling.

Her remark now making sense, Mac found himself smiling too.

“So, Detective Bonasera tells me that Glass has ‘authority’ issues.”

“That’s one way to put it,” sneered Mac. He paused a moment to take a deep breath before continuing. “She’s a good CSI. She knows how to do her job and she does it well.”

“But?” coaxed Sydney.

Mac stood with one hand on his waist, while he ran the other through his hair. “She doesn’t get along well with her male co-workers, nor does she take orders well from me. I rarely interact with her. For the past six months she’s reported directly to Detective Bonasera. That arrangement seems to work best for all concerned.”

“You want rid of her?” Sydney asked bluntly.

Mac looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“I know the regs say she should be fired or at least suspended, but I don’t think that’s in her best interest.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Transfer her to my team, to SVU.”

“Are you serious?” asked Mac in surprise.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I think her ‘zeal’, shall we say, would be better directed working in SVU.”

Mac chuckled to himself and said, “Okay, but only if you’re sure.”

Looking him in the eye, she said, “I am.”

She stood there facing him for a moment then turned to leave, but Mac stopped her by saying, “I hope you don’t think that just because you’re a Marine, you’ll be able to whip her into shape.”

“Oh I don’t,” responded Sydney with a sly grin. “I think I’ll be able to because I’m a woman.”


	2. Fate

_Monday, March 17, 2003_

The body lay marred and lifeless upon the cold brick of the small plaza. It stood out stark against its surroundings as there was nothing to mask its presence. No trees or shrubs, no rocks or fences. For now the only thing that shielded it from the eyes of passerby was the darkness of night. But morning would come quickly, and lift its veil.

* * *

 

Only two months on the job, and Sydney was already hopelessly behind on paperwork. It seemed that there was an endless supply of forms and reports and various other unknown documents coming across her desk each day. She fully intended to lock herself in her office for the entire day and make a serious attempt to downsize the ever-growing tower of papers in her inbox. Her plans, however, were not meant to be. No sooner than she stepped onto the twenty-first floor a call came in requesting the presence of an SVU detective in Central Park. As she had had the bright idea to come into work early and get a head start on that paperwork, she was the only one available. She’d been given an extension; one more day to avoid her paperwork. It wasn’t too upsetting. She enjoyed the opportunity to get out in the field (something she didn’t get to do very often as department head); but at the same time, it meant another day for more paperwork to accumulate.  
  


* * *

 

“New York is a little colder than San Diego, isn’t it?” asked Mac, observing Sydney rub her gloved her hands together as she approached the crime scene.

“Just a bit. It’s only about a twenty degree difference. Nothing I can’t handle. Compared to some places I’ve been, this could be considered warm,” replied Sydney, her voiced tinged with sarcasm. “Anyway, what’d you call me out here for?”

“A jogger happened upon a female D.B. this morning,” Mac said indicating the motionless form a few feet from where they stood.

Sydney looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue, but he didn’t. He simply stared at the dead woman’s body, his face unreadable. She looked at the body then back at Mac a few times, trying to figure out what had caused his sudden daze. It was a few moments before he noticed the curious looks she was giving him.

“Sorry,” Mac said, looking down as he rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

Sydney asked if he was okay but the tone of her voice lacked genuine concern. Mac said he was fine; however his response was automatic, as if he was a robot programmed to say those exact words every time that question was posed to him. She didn’t believe him, but was nonetheless willing to take his _fine_ at face value.

Mac walked over to the victim, bent down and pulled back the flimsy sheet that was wrapped around her torso. “The body was mutilated. As you can see, our killer took some souvenirs.”

Throughout her career, Sydney had seen many hideous displays of the malevolence that men were capable of.  What lay before her now was rather mild in comparison but it still elicited a feeling of revulsion in the pit of her stomach. The killer had sliced off the woman’s breasts. Sydney couldn’t help but wrap her hands protectively around her own. A slight shiver went through her body as she thought about what that must have felt like. She hoped for the woman’s sake that she was already dead when it happened.

Mac continued, “Judging from the minimal amount of blood, I believe they were removed after she died. Hawkes can confirm that for us. Still, I think we’re looking at a secondary crime scene. This isn’t where she was killed. It’s too clean and the body looks posed.”

Sydney walked around the crime scene, looking for anything that might suggest otherwise. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Detective Taylor’s assessment, but she wanted to draw her own conclusions rather than blindly accept the words of a CSI. Returning her attention to the victim she asked, “Was she dressed like this when you arrived?”

“Yeah, there were no other garments, shoes or anything.”

“So no I.D. then?”

“No. We’re looking at a Jane Doe.” Mac reached over and lifted up the woman’s left hand. “However, she’s still wearing her wedding ring. A diamond this big has probably been laser inscribed with a serial number. Hopefully we can get an I.D. off of it.”

“Good. I guess we can rule out robbery then, since the killer didn’t take the ring; although it wasn’t on my top five list of possible motives to begin with.”

Sydney looked the victim up and down trying to get a sense of who the murderer might be. Was this the working of a serial killer or a spurned lover? Without taking her eyes off of the body she asked Mac, “Any idea how she died?”

“Not at the moment. Other than the removal of her breasts, I see no signs of injury. We’ll know more after Hawkes does the autopsy. He should also be able to give us an approximate time of death.”

Sydney stood up and brushed off her pants. “All right then, anything else?”

“Yeah,” said Mac, rising from his kneeling position. “Did you happen to notice where we’re at?” He tilted his head in the direction of a towering structure standing a short distance from them.

Keeping her eyes on Mac, she replied, “You mean did I notice that there’s a dead woman, practically naked, with her breasts hacked off lying beneath a giant phallic symbol?”

Mac nodded, and was unable to suppress a slight smile brought on by her sarcastic assessment.

Finally looking up at the object to which Mac referred, Sydney continued, “Yeah, I noticed that. Although before today I was unaware that there was an obelisk in Central Park.”

“Cleopatra’s Needle,” Mac informed her, as he turned to look at the obelisk himself. “It’s more than three thousand years old. There are a few different stories as to how it made its way from Egypt to New York, but the official one is that it was a gift. It’s stood here on Greywacke Knoll for over one hundred and twenty years now.”

“Interesting. So you think it’s significant for reasons other than looking like an oversized penis?” She smiled at him mischievously as she waited for his reaction.

Turning back around, he ignored her obvious attempt to make him wince and merely smiled. “Everything is connected, lieutenant.”  
  


* * *

 

“I checked with missing persons but didn’t find anyone matching our vic,” said Sydney as she and Mac walked through the doors of the morgue. “You’d think the husband would’ve noticed his wife is missing by now.”

“You’d think,” said Mac flatly.

As they approached the exam table where their Jane Doe lay, Mac asked, “What do you got for us, Hawkes?”

The medical examiner looked up from the corpse and greeted the two officers with his friendly smile. “Hopefully more answers than questions. Your vic wasn’t raped. I didn’t find any signs of recent sexual activity, consensual or otherwise.”

“Damn,” said Sydney, frustrated. “I was hoping we’d get some DNA. What about trace? Find anything under her fingernails?”

Hawkes lifted up the woman’s left hand for them to see. “No. There’s nothing to indicate she struggled with her killer.”

“Then maybe the killer was someone she knew,” suggested Sydney.

“Maybe,” said Mac. “What about COD?”

“She was poisoned. I found extremely high levels of insulin in her blood stream. She wasn’t diabetic nor were there any insulin-secreting tumors in her pancreas. The only explanation for its presence is that she was intentionally injected with it. I found the injection site here on her abdomen.” Hawkes handed Mac a magnifying glass and pointed to a small puncture wound below her navel. “Your killer knew what he was doing. The abdomen has the fastest absorption rate. That on top of the high dose she received, death would have occurred quickly.”

“Perhaps our killer is a diabetic,” said Mac, thinking out loud.

“Or knows someone who is,” added Sydney, finishing his thought. “What about I.D.? Did you run her prints through AFIS?”

Hawkes shook his head. “I did, no hits.” He was silent for a moment, looking expectantly at Sydney. “Aren’t you going to ask about her breasts?”

Sydney’s hands instinctively rose to cup her own as she crossed her arms over her chest. “They were cut off, what more do I need to know?”

The relocation of her hands did not go unnoticed by the two men.

“Is this making you uneasy, lieutenant?” asked Mac.

“Wouldn’t _you_ feel a little ‘uneasy’ if this was a man lying here with all of his…junk whacked off? I think you might get a little protective too,” replied Sydney, coming across a bit more defensive than she intended.

Mac’s eyes were wide and his eyebrows were considerably closer to his hairline than usual, as he turned to Hawkes and motioned for him to continue.

“Well, they were removed post mortem with a serrated blade of some kind. The flesh is ragged and uneven, indicating the killer sawed his way through. Judging from the stops and starts in the cuts, I doubt this was something he’d done before.”

“So that could rule out a serial killer,” said Sydney. “What about TOD?”

“I’d put it between 12:30 and 1:00 am.”

“Okay, anything else?” asked Mac who was anxious to get back to the crime lab and continue processing evidence.

“No, that’s everything.”

“Thank you doctor,” said Mac, as he and Sydney turned to leave.

“I was looking at a map of Central Park and I noticed that the obelisk is in back of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” said Sydney as she and Mac walked through the corridor outside the morgue. “I’m going to head over there and see if they have any security cameras that may have caught some footage of our killer leaving the body.”

“Sounds good. I’m going to go back to the lab and see how we’re coming on identifying our vic. I’ll keep you posted.”

“All right, same here.”  
  


* * *

 

A few hours later Sydney returned to the crime lab. She found Mac and the newest member of his team, Aiden Burn, in the layout room, hunched over evidence and peering through magnifying glasses.

“Hey, I got the museum’s surveillance tape and dropped it off in the AV lab. Chad said he’d notify me as soon as he finds anything. So, how about the two of you? Any luck on our Jane Doe?”

“I pulled the serial number off the diamond ring and was able to get you a name and address: Allan Seabrook, 35 East 75th, apartment 15 D,” said Aiden, as she handed a printout to Sydney.

“That’s between Madison and Park,” commented Mac.

Sydney looked to him for an explanation of why that was significant.

“It’s about a half a mile from where we found the body,” he added.

“Well that’s convenient; but I still think our killer chose that location for its symbolic reference.”

“Certainly,” said Mac with a smile, “because it was convenient.”

Not wanting to get into a circular argument with Mac, Sydney switched subjects. “So, Allan, our vic’s husband perhaps?” she wondered aloud. “I’ll get a search warrant and go see if he’s home or not.”

“I’ll join you,” said Mac, rising from the stool he was seated on. “Aiden, finish processing the sheet the vic was wrapped in. See if you can find any trace on it.”

“You got it, sir … uh, Mac,” she replied, shaking her head a bit in embarrassment.  
  


* * *

 

After securing a warrant, Mac and Sydney headed to the Upper East Side in hopes of finding some more pieces to their puzzle. They rode in silence most of the way. The quiet was only broken by the voices over the radio scanner. Sydney was focused on driving and not really thinking of much else. Her reverie was broken by the sound of Mac’s voice. It caught her off guard as he didn’t seem the type to make idle chit chat.

“So, how are things working out with Glass?” he asked.

“Hmm? Oh, um … yeah, she pretty much hates my guts and I pretty much don’t give a shit.”

Mac laughed at this, amused, but certainly not surprised.

“I got her working with Paul. You know, Sergeant Giordano?” Mac nodded his head. “I figured the best way to get her to deal with her male authority issues was to force her to take orders from one.”

“How’s Giordano taking to that?”

“He’s like ‘whatever, I got two teenage daughters, so bring it’.” Mac chuckled. “He don’t put up with none of her crap. It’s hilarious to watch.” Sydney laughed to herself a bit. A few moments later she asked, “So, how’s it with your new detective? Aiden’s her name, right?”

“So far she seems to be fitting right in. She transferred from patrol though, so it’s taking her a while to get accustomed to how we do things.”

“She seems very eager to impress her new boss.”

Mac smiled. “She keeps calling me ‘sir.’”

“You don’t like being called ‘sir’?”

“No.”

“Me neither…although, I prefer it to ‘ma’am’.”

Mac gave her a confused look then shook his head in amusement.

The rest of the ride was spent in companionable silence as neither spoke again until they reached their destination several minutes later.

The pair entered the imposing apartment building and quickly made their way to the fifteenth floor, bringing the building manager along with them in case no one was home.

Sydney tried the polite tactic of knocking first. When there was no response after a few seconds, she banged on door with her fist, shouting: “Open up! NYPD!”

The building manager was an older woman dressed in a tweed skirt suit with her hair coiffed into a tight bun. Her displeasure at Sydney’s lack of decorum was noticeably apparent. The pleasant smile on her face vanished leaving her expression stony. Sydney was oblivious to the woman’s change in demeanor. Mac however, could barely suppress a grin. He was sure that if someone were to take a hammer to the woman’s face it would shatter into a million pieces.

While it may have seemed like an eternity to the manager, this little commotion lasted mere seconds. Sydney quickly determined that either no one was home or if they were, they had no intention of answering the door. She turned to the older woman and motioned for her to open it. The manager brushed passed her giving her a dirty look as she went. Sydney didn’t know what to make of it and looked to Mac for an explanation. He just shook his head and mouthed, “Later.”

The manager unlocked the door, turned the knob and promptly stepped out of the way. Sydney entered the apartment first, her hand hovering above her sidearm. “NYPD!” she yelled again. “We’ve got a search warrant!” She produced the document and laid it on the kitchen counter as she walked by.

Mac followed closely behind, carefully observing his surroundings as he went. They cleared the large apartment room by room and didn’t find anyone there. However, they did find plenty of evidence to process. Mac popped his silver, metal kit open and got to work. He began in the master bedroom as he noticed that the bed was unmade and the mattress appeared to be missing the fitted sheet. Meanwhile, Sydney searched for anything that could help them identify their Jane Doe. In the living room she found a side table covered in picture frames. She recognized the victim in several of them, but she still didn’t have a name.

“I think I found our primary crime scene,” Mac yelled, down the hallway. “And the murder weapon,” he added as Sydney walked into the room. He handed her an evidence bag containing what looked like an oversized ballpoint pen.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s an insulin pen. They’re a new insulin injection device. The cartridge inside can hold up to 300 units of insulin, enough for several days’ worth of doses.” Pointing at the evidence, he said, “This one is empty.”

Handing the bag back to him, Sydney replied, “But we don’t know how full it was when the killer stabbed our vic with it.”

“Actually, we do. You see this little screen here?” Mac pointed to a digital display at the top of the pen. “It allows you to track the time, date and amount of recent doses. This pen logged only one dose of 300 units at 12:23 am on March twelfth.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Sydney. “It didn’t happen to log the killer’s name too, did it?”

“Won’t know that until I–.”

Mac suddenly stopped short. He and Sydney turned their heads in the direction of the hallway as they heard someone slip a key into the door lock. They both pulled their guns from their holsters and proceeded down the hallway. The door opened and a young woman, possibly late twenties, walked in. She jumped at the sight of Mac and Sydney aiming their weapons at her.

“Oh my god!” the woman squealed, her hand clutching at her chest.

“We’re NYPD,” said Sydney, flashing her badge. “Who are you? Do you live here?”

“Wha-? N-no, I don’t…I don’t live here. My friend Deanna does. I haven’t heard from her in a couple days, so I came to check on her.”

Mac and Sydney lowered their guns, and Sydney asked again, “Your name?”

“Oh, sorry,” the woman was still breathing heavily. “My name is Christine Fletcher.”

“I’m Lieutenant Sydney Logan and this is Detective Mac Taylor.”

Christine shook her head in acknowledgement, trying to make sense of everything. “Did something happen to Deanna?”

Sydney didn’t answer but posed a question of her own. “Can you point Deanna out to me in one of these pictures over here?” She gestured towards the table she examined earlier.

“Of course.” Christine picked up a silver frame with the word _friends_ inscribed across the top of. It held a picture of her and the victim standing on the beach, arms wrapped around one another with the Atlantic Ocean in the background. “That’s Deanna on the right.”

Sydney solemnly nodded her head and turned to face Christine. The look on her face must have given her away.

“Deanna’s not okay is she? Where…” Dawning spread across her face as she bored into Sydney’s eyes. “She’s dead isn’t she? Oh my god, she’s dead.” Christine began pacing around the room, tears streaming down her face. “I knew it, I knew he was gonna do it!”

“Knew who was going to do what?” asked Sydney, her gentle expression turning severe.

“Allan! Her husband! I _knew_ he was going to kill her!”

“What makes you think it was her husband?” asked Mac.

“She was divorcing him and taking him for everything he had. Allan Seabrook’s not the type of man to take that lying down.”

Mac and Sydney exchanged a glance. The husband was looking more and more suspicious.

Remembering the insulin pen he found under the nightstand in the master bedroom, Mac asked, “Is he a diabetic?”

“No, not that I’m aware of. Why?”

Mac looked at her apologetically and replied, “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

“Do you know where we can find him?” asked Sydney, rather quickly. She wanted to forestall any complaints from Christine about not giving her all the facts of her friend’s death.

“Uh, yeah. He’s the CFO at Parsons and Greer Investment Firm.”

“All right, well, we will go have a talk with him. In the meantime let’s call you a cab? Okay?” Sydney smiled at her sympathetically and gently patted her shoulder.

Christine just nodded her head, as she bit her lower lip, in a futile attempt to repress her tears.

“Can I get your number in case I have any more questions from you?” asked Sydney.

Christine reached into her purse and produced a business card. “You’ll have better luck reaching me on my cell rather than at work. I’m rarely at my desk and I’m not good about checking my voicemail.”

“Okay, thanks. And here is my card if you need to contact me for any reason,” said Sydney as she withdrew one from the pocket inside of her coat. “I’m sorry you had to stumble upon this, but you’ve been a really big help.”

The young woman shook her head in acknowledgement and took a seat on the couch as Sydney pulled out her cell phone to call for a cab. Mac was about to return to the master bedroom to continue searching for evidence when Christine began to speak.

“Life is strange, you know?” she wiped at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “Deanna thought she was safe. I tried to warn her about Allan, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She was convinced that nothing would happen to her, that _fate_ wouldn’t allow it. She’d already had one brush with death and survived, so surely she’d live to be an old woman. For as long as I’ve known her, she’s always been arrogant like that. I knew it would get her into trouble one day.”

“One brush with death?” asked Mac, curious about her statement.

“Yeah, she worked in the South Tower at the World Trade Center. She barely made it out of there before it collapsed.”

Mac was visibly shaken by this, but he quickly steadied himself. “Was she married at the time?” he asked in as nonchalant a voice as he could muster.

“She was. She and Allan had been married about a year at the time.”

_Hmm_ was Mac’s only response. He stood there frozen, staring down at the floor seemingly probing it for answers.

Christine was oblivious to this as she was lost in her own thoughts. This exchange, however, did not go unnoticed by Sydney. It was obvious that something was eating away at the man. As for what that something might be, she had no idea. Quite frankly, unless it began interfering with her case, she didn’t care to know. She had enough problems of her own to deal with.

Sydney snapped everyone out of their reverie when she spoke. “Your cab should be here momentarily, Christine. Would you like me to escort you outside?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, I’ll be fine. Thank you though.” Christine stood up and walked to the door. Before stepping into the hallway, she turned back to Sydney and said, “Promise me you’ll catch the son of a bitch who did this.”

“I promise,” said Sydney in all sincerity. She never made a promise she didn’t intend to keep.  
  


* * *

 

After Christine left, Mac and Sydney resumed searching the apartment for clues that might lead them closer to finding Deanna’s killer. Sydney looked through some filing cabinets in the study and found a copy of the Seabrooks’ prenuptial agreement. If the victim’s husband was indeed the killer, then Sydney had just found an excellent motive. In case of a divorce, Allan had agreed to compensate Deanna by giving her a lump sum of one million dollars and full ownership of their luxurious apartment.

Mac finished processing the bedroom and moved into the master bath. As he did not find any bloodstains in the bedroom, he assumed the victim’s breasts were most likely removed in the bathroom, where clean up would have been easier. He sprayed the bathtub with Luminol and found that it was positive for blood.

“Hey Mac, you done here?” Sydney called out, as she walked back into the apartment.

Mac came walking down the hallway from the bedroom, arms full with evidence bags. “Yeah, I am. Could you give me a hand taking this down to the truck?”

“Sure.” Sydney picked up the rest of the bags and followed Mac outside. “I talked to some of the neighbors, but no one heard or saw anything out of the ordinary the other night.”

Mac just shook his head in response.

Sydney continued, “Anyway, I thought I’d drop you off at the crime lab, and then pay a visit to Mr. Seabrook.”

 “Actually, if you don’t mind, I’ll turn the evidence over to Aiden so I can accompany you.”

Sydney was both surprised and slightly annoyed by this. “You want to come with me when I talk to the husband?”

“Yeah, is that okay?” The irritation in Mac’s voice was barely discernible.

“Fine.” Sydney wanted to say more, but she held her tongue. She thought CSIs liked to stay in their labs, yet Mac seemed to want to do her job as well.  
  


* * *

 

Parsons and Greer Investment Firm was housed in one of the many skyscrapers littering Manhattan’s Financial District. It was late in the day when Mac and Sydney arrived. Many people were already leaving their offices and heading home. It was unlikely that Allan was among them however, since he was the Chief Financial Officer for a large company.

Mac and Sydney got off on the twenty-sixth floor and walked over to the front desk. “Hi, I’m Lieutenant Logan and this is Detective Taylor. We’re with the NYPD. We’d like to speak to Allan Seabrook. Is he available?” Sydney asked as she flashed her badge to the receptionist.

“Do you have an appointment?” the older woman asked, without looking up from her work.

Sydney dropped her smile, put her hands on her hips and replied, “No, but it’s an urgent matter regarding his wife. If he’s here, we need to speak with him. Now.”

Still keeping her head down, the woman said, “If you don’t have an appointment, there’s nothing I can do for you.”

Raising her voice, Sydney said, “Wrong answer. Let’s try this again shall we? Take us to Allan Seabrook.”

Unaccustomed to her sour demeanor being an ineffective deterrent, the receptionist yielded by saying, “Of course, ma’am. This way.”

She directed them down a long hallway at the end of which was the CFO’s office. The door was open, so she walked right in and announced their presence. “Sorry to bother you sir, but there are a couple of police officers here who insisted on speaking to you.”

Allan Seabrook stood from his desk and flattened his tie against his shirt, not looking the least bit nervous. “Thank you, Nancy.” Stepping out from behind his desk he motioned for Mac and Sydney to enter. “How may I help you officers?” He may have addressed both of them, but he looked to Mac for a response.

This did not go unnoticed by Sydney who glowered at him before beginning. “We’re here about your wife.”

“My wife? What about her?”

“When did you last see her?”

“I’m not sure, a couple of weeks ago maybe. We’re going through a divorce, so we’re not exactly on friendly terms,” Allan answered with a bit of a laugh.

Mac, however, was not at all amused. “You’re wife is dead.” His voice, forceful and blunt, had a sobering effect on Allan.

Allan seemed to be taken aback and confused by this. “Dead? What are you talking about?”

Mac spoke without a hint of compassion. “Your wife was found dead in Central Park Monday morning.”

“Oh my, I...Deanna’s dead? Wow!” Allan ran a hand through his hair, his eyes darting back and forth between Mac and Sydney. “I um…I don’t know what to say…”

“Why don’t you start with telling us where you were around midnight on Monday,” said Sydney, who wasn’t buying his paltry display of grief.

“I was at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in bed. I’ve been staying there since Deanna and I split, until I can find a new place.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“What? Do you think I killed Deanna?!”

“I don’t know. Did you?”

“I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Lieutenant.”

“Hey, if you’re not guilty, why not give us your fingerprints and a DNA sample, so we can rule you out as a suspect?”

Allan stood there for a moment, regarding Sydney and her offer. He seemed to be weighing his options, trying to decide what the most beneficial course of action would be for him. “Fine. Do whatever you need to.”  
  


* * *

 

“He’s lying,” Sydney said in annoyance as they walked back to her SUV.

“I would agree, but we’re going to have to let the evidence prove that,” replied Mac.

“He didn’t seem too broken up over it.”

“No he didn’t. But he did willingly submit his DNA and fingerprints.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s innocent, cocky bastard.”

“No, it doesn’t. I think he’s betting that he covered his tracks and that we won’t find anything to connect him to the murder.”

“Well let’s hope he slipped up, ‘cause my gut’s telling me he’s our guy.”  
  


* * *

 

“Aiden, tell me you got something that will prove the husband did it,” said Sydney, sounding exhausted, as she and Mac walked into the layout room of the crime lab.

“I don’t have anything on him, but I do have something on his mother,” Aiden replied.

“His mother?” This was not what she expected to hear.

“Yeah, the insulin pen Mac found was prescribed to Lydia Seabrook, age eighty-five, and resident of the Vintage, an assisted living retirement home up in Albany. I spoke with her nurse who told me that one of Mrs. Seabrook’s insulin pens went missing around the time her son visited her a couple of weeks ago.”

“Were there any fingerprints on the pen?” asked Mac.

“None.”

“So we can’t definitely place it in Allan Seabrook’s hands.”

“Maybe not, but that should be enough to give us probable cause and obtain a search warrant,” said Sydney.

Blatantly ignoring her, Mac asked, “What about the blood samples I collected from the bathroom, was there any foreign DNA in it?”

“No, it all was a match to the vic.”

“Dammit!” Mac slammed his hands down on the counter. “All that evidence I collected and we’ve got nothing!”

Mac’s sudden outburst caught Sydney off guard. “Whoa, Mac! I wouldn’t say we’ve got nothing. The insulin –”

Not hearing a word she said, Mac cut her off. “The museum surveillance video, have you watched it yet?”

“No, I-”

Mac quickly exited the room, and practically ran towards the AV lab, with Sydney right behind him. “Chad, the surveillance video from the Met,” he barked.

“Uh, hey, yeah, I’ve got that right … here.” Chad fumbled about his computer for a moment before finally bringing up the right video. “Okay, so the museum’s cameras have an excellent view of the obelisk. The victim was discovered at 6:03 that morning as you can clearly see here. I went back through the tape and found that she was there since 1:37 am.” Chad rewound the footage to the segment that captured Deanna Seabrook’s body being deposited beneath the obelisk by a person wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt.

“Can we get a close-up on our suspect?” asked Mac.

“Uh, yeah.” Several keystrokes and mouse clicks later, Chad had a clear picture of the suspect.

A look of satisfaction spread across Mac’s face. “Got him.”  
  


* * *

 

The damning footage of Allan Seabrook dumping his wife’s dead body in Central Park was more than enough to obtain warrants for his arrest and the search of his office and hotel suite. All three were processed swiftly and diligently. Irrefutable evidence in hand, Mac and Sydney walked into interrogation, ready to squeeze a confession out of their detainee.

Laying out several evidentiary photographs on the table in front of Allan, Sydney got right to the point. “The knife we found in your desk has your wife’s blood on it as well as her mammary tissue. We know that’s what you used to cut her breasts off. We found those as well, in your freezer.”

Unabashed by this declaration, and seemingly unruffled by the more horrific pictures, Allan countered, “That doesn’t prove anything. Someone else could have put it there to frame me.”

“ _Could have_? You don’t sound convinced of your own story.”

“Reasonable doubt. It’s all a jury needs. You didn’t find my prints on the knife, did you?”

Neither Sydney nor Mac responded to this. While it was true that they did not, they wanted to lull him into a false sense of security, even if it was only for a moment.

Taking their silence as an affirmative to his question he sneered, “You’ve got nothing.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” The derision in her voice was contrary to the smile that graced her features. She slid another photograph across the table.

As she did so, Mac said, “We’ve got you on tape leaving her body in Central Park.”

Allan was clearly unsettled by this, but he persisted. “Still doesn’t prove I was the one to kill her.”

Sydney continued to mock him. “So you had an accomplice then? Your mother perhaps.”

“What?!” They were closer to the truth than Allan had anticipated.

“It was one of her insulin pens that was used to poison your wife,” said Mac, his patience wavering. “You didn’t know we had that did you?”

“I don’t have anything more to say, except that she got what she deserved. I wish she’d died on 9/11 like everyone else, then I wouldn’t be sitting here right now!”

“You son of a bitch!” growled Mac. “You were given a second chance that was denied to many of us and you took it for granted.”

“Hey, if I could have traded places with someone, believe me I would’ve.”

At those heinous words Mac reached across table and grabbed Allan by the collar of his shirt. Before Sydney knew what was happening, Mac had the man shoved up against the wall.

“Whoa! Hey! Let him go Mac!” Sydney ordered as she moved to restrain her colleague.

Hearing the commotion, the officer who was standing watch outside the door rushed in. On Sydney’s command he hauled Allan out of the interrogation room.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Sydney rounded on Mac and unleashed her temper. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” she barked. “Are you trying to get our case dismissed?”

Mac looked up to meet her gaze. She had more to say but when she saw the look in his eyes, all of her anger and frustration fell away.

“My wife, Claire, died on 9/11.” He said nothing more, offered no further explanation for his behavior. None was needed.

Sydney understood immediately, possibly better than anyone else, and certainly more than Mac realized. “Why don’t you let me finish this up?”

“No, I’ll be okay.”

Sydney smiled weakly. “I was being polite. I’ll finish the interrogation on my own.”

“Fine,” said Mac. He walked out of the room, head down, shoulders slumped, defeated.  
  


* * *

 

“Hey Mac,” said Sydney as she stood in the doorway to his office.

Without looking up from the file he was holding he replied, “How’d it go?”

“He called for his lawyer. I couldn’t really get much more out of him. But I talked with the DA and she’s pretty confident we’ll get a conviction.”

“Good.”

Sydney turned to leave but hesitated for a moment. Mac noticed this out of the corner of his eye. He watched as she stood on the landing outside his door, the palm of her right hand patting the railing. He knew what she was doing. She was debating whether or not to offer him her condolences. He assumed that in a few seconds she would turn around, walk back into his office and say something considerate. They all did. Whenever anyone found out about his wife they always felt compelled to let him know he had their sympathy. But he didn’t want their sympathy. Didn’t give a damn about it. He knew the only reason they did it was because they would feel guilty if they didn’t, not because they actually cared. Sydney surprised him though. She didn’t turn back around; instead she walked down the short flight of stairs and made her way towards the elevator without ever saying a word.


End file.
